Belief, Worship and Prayer

Whenever I tell people that I have gone to a temple, a religious place or that I did some ritual, I usually get a glance which conveys the idea, “You are equivocal my dear! Be true to one belief of yours.” As for others who did not know it till then; yes, I do go to all the temples but no I don’t worship all the deities. Yes, I do perform some of the religious rituals that have to be done but no I don’t believe in the reason for which it is being done.

People usually don’t find much difference between praying, worshipping and believing in ‘God’ as in most cases all three go hand in hand. By ‘God’ I do mean the conventional God that everyone worships in temples, churches, mosques etc… As for me, all three are quite distinct. Yes I do worship to ‘A God’ just because I find His personal traits inspiring. He is more of a Hero to me than a God. In a country where film stars are worshipped as Gods can’t I worship God as a hero? Just because I worship him and consider him as my Lord and superior doesn’t mean I believe in His existence. Although I sincerely wish for His presence to be a truth, I sadly have to acknowledge the fact that in life we never get what we wish for.



Prayer is one silly custom that every religion has which seems to be completely pointless. When we were children we used to ask our parents every toy, candy and ice cream that we could get a glimpse of. Parents, who are supposed to know what is better for us, delivered only those things to us although we wanted them all. Just the same way we grown-ups still ask God for favours, money, achievement etc. and wait for God to deliver it to us. If God is supposed to be all-knowing omniscient being doesn’t he know what is good for his child (You!)?

I believe almost all religions believe that it was God who created the universe, put things into action and holds a divine plan, a blueprint of what has to happen since the creation. If by chance a person prays to God asking for a favour (considering that God exists) and that particular wish contradict His plan, what is He supposed to do? Change the entire plan along with all its repercussions that would echo for billions of years to follow, just for a single puny mortal or should He disregard the prayer and stick to His own plan? If He would change His plans for every tom, dick and harry with a bible, Quran or Gita praying sincerely, what sort of amateur plan would that be? I don’t think an omnipotent and omniscient individual is allowed to be this incompetent. Or if the God sticks only to his own plan and maintains order, why bother praying in the first place? Let the thing happen according to God’s wish and will. Hence, I don’t find the need for a prayer at all!

What would your reaction be to your friend who keeps asking you for helps and favours at every turn of his life? I am sure you would get pissed off. If we can’t even give ear to a single person’s requests, what do you think would be God’s reaction to almost 6 billion stupid prayers that he is expected to answer each day? I don’t think it is a good idea to piss off or create a bad impression on an omnipotent being.

Although I do have taken a lot of challenges with God asking Him to do something as a proof of His existence, the one thing that I have always encountered is that the probability of occurrence is always half. {Refer God(?? Or !!) }. Irrespective of the God you pray and the rituals you follow, I am sure that the probability of a prayer being answered is going to be just the same for every person; the same 50%. So pick your God of choice, pray to Him and enjoy your life! As for me, am content with not receiving the wrath of God by praying to Him!! ;) :P

Hence Proved!!

This has been a usual happening for the past few months when someone starts talking about God, prayer, worship etc… and finally end up asking about religion to me. Unable to control myself I start my ramblings on the idea of God which results in the person making a facial expression which usually resembles his/her idea,” Why the hell did I ask his opinion?” The instant I say the magic words,” I am God and you are too!” people confirm that I am deluded! Since this kept getting more and more prominent, I have finally decided that I will prove what I say. Yes readers, I am going to prove that You are God.




Axiom or Known fact: Before the beginning of Universe nothing existed except God.
Religions that talk about creation say that before Universe was created nothing existed other than God. Science (Big Bang Theory – the original theory and not the sitcom) states that all contents in the Universe was compressed into a tiny particle (Lets call it the God particle) before the Big Bang after which expansion started. So we can now stick to the fact that before the creation or beginning of Universe only God or The God particle existed.

Let us consider two examples of creator and creation in our everyday life. A potter creates a pot by using the raw material clay. Similarly a goldsmith creates gold ornaments using the raw material gold. In both cases although potter or goldsmith is the creator of pot or ornament, unless they have the necessary raw materials, neither of them can bring into existence a pot or jewellery out of thin air.

If God is the creator of Universe, then He also would have definitely needed a raw material to create the cosmos. But we also know that before ‘The Creation’ there was nothing else. So what is the precursor or raw material for him to build the Universe?

Let us consider another classic example of a spider who builds its nest (spider web) using its own saliva. In this case the spider creates the web using itself as the material. Or in other words, the spider is both the creator and the creation. This seems to be the similar problem that God must have faced billions of years ago! Hence God used the only raw material available for him then to create the Universe. As a spider spins a web from its saliva for creating a home, God spun a Universe out of Himself and thus the Universe was born. Hence it is obvious that the God is both the creator and the creation. We humans along with every other material surrounding us are all part of this Universe.

Similarly according to Big Bang theory, The God Particle underwent a huge explosion which finally resulted in creation of our present Universe. So every object around us, You, I etc… have come from this single God Particle. Thereby, irrespective of my belief (whether I believe in God or not) one thing that is most certain is that we all have originated from a single entity called either God or The God Particle.

Hence proved!!!

God (?? or !!)

A few months back when someone told me to watch a movie called, “A Man From Earth” and added that it’s a good movie, I, like every normal Indian youth, downloaded the movie from torrent and watched it, which was when I realized how wrong my friend’s comments were about the movie. It was not just a ‘good movie’ but was a life changing one which unconsciously changed many of my views on religion, life and me. In brief, the movie is all about a 14,000 year old man from upper paleolithic age who survives until the present day, his unique experiences, ideas and his beliefs. The man starts his experience by narrating about his early life, rise and fall of empires and finally reaches a crescendo when he reveals his identity.

So why am I writing a review of an already well acclaimed science fiction movie that was released some 5 years ago? The reason is, the movie unconsciously has imbibed into me certain ideas. At one point, the oldman when talking about religion says,” Believe in what He (God) tried to teach without the rigmarole...Piety is not what the lessons bring to people, its the mistakes they bring to the lessons.” Yes I am going to blabber about this in the forthcoming paragraphs and these are completely my opinions alone and I do not wish to insult or dishonour any religion or its beliefs although I may talk my opinion about many of the practices involved in them.

Almost all religions, especially those of Indian origin and Abrahamic religions when started, stressed more importantly on the principles to be followed and the ultimate gain associated with it – to reach God or to reach the ultimate truth and in some cases both the same. The prophets who established the religion also laid some basic ground rules for the group to follow to facilitate easier practice of the principles without confusion. But as time followed, the principles got diluted and the rules became more rigid. Men who were head of their religion started bending the rules according to their whim in the name of God and made humans as sinners. The principles, the reason for which the rules came into existence in the first place is now long lost in books and rules are followed blindly without reason. Even the principles present in the books are twisted beyond recognition by the heads who followed the initial founder and modified it in the name of commentaries and explanations.

I definitely do not blindly accuse that all commentaries and explanations are fake and misleading. There does exist some worthy explanations but are like finding white grains of sand in a pile of rice. The original manuscripts of these religions cannot be directly read and understood by a naïve common man since most of them are either lost, mutated or is present in extinct languages leaving him to go for translations and commentaries most of which are screwed up beyond recognition leaving the ignorant man bewildered as to which path he has to follow. This was the same problem which I too faced unable to decide where to rest my belief. Unable to rest it at one place, I decided to test it.

Yes I am talking about the incident that occurred in Tirupati of which I’ve described about in the blog , “The Fortunate Folks” - http://www.thoughtsofvenky.blogspot.com/2011/04/fortunate-folks.html It has been less than a year since I had challenged God for 3 favors and asking for atleast one to occur! Interestingly, of those wishes, exactly a half of each of my three wishes has become a reality.

So does that mean that there is a God with conscience? If so what does that exact half signify? Or since only a half of all the three occurred should I stick to the idea that there is no God. But since the prayers seem half answered I come to this final conclusion. There is a God (definitely not the God what you are thinking right now). But he doesn’t have four hands and ten heads or he doesn’t say that all humans are sinners. Neither he asks women to cover their faces nor does he ask men to grow beard and cover their head.




A God is above all these mundane stuffs. He doesn’t ask you to praise Him and sing about Him. He doesn’t care whether you pray, worship and chant his name a million times. He is above what is good and bad to human race. A superior man may want his subordinates to do all of the above said stuff. But definitely, not a God. A God doesn’t even need to have a conscience to give justice at every single turn. God is truth and justice incarnate. He is the physical law that acts upon the universe, the law that makes earth go around the sun, the law that generates huge quanta of energy when hydrogen is fused to helium in the sun and the law that causes protons and electrons to attract and at the same time unite the same positively charged protons tightly together. He is present at every soul around you, every inanimate object that surrounds you, every celestial bodies including the very earth on which we stand and also on the empty voids that lies between two such objects. He is the Universe, the law that created it and the law that holds it together. Every single atom to supermassive blackholes, from suns and nebulas to yourself and your hated neighbour - we are all a part of this universal soul – The God.

Aham Brahmaasmi!!

Who am I?

To all the patient readers of my blog, i know you would all by know been confused. Initially I talked about Sankara and Advaita, then gradually moved to atheism and claimed that there is no ‘God’. Then suddenly I post a poem of Siva! So who am I? Well, I too am not sure as to which side I am in!

1. I am undoubtedly believer of Advaita, so am an advaitin! I have kept Adi Sankara and his advaita principles at great awe and respect.

2. I am a person who believes that there is only one single source of power and accept many of the universal facts present in Vedas – the source and origin of advaita philosophy.

3. I do accept Sankara’s idea of Shanamta worship ( pray to any of the following six Gods: Siva, Vishnu, Sakthi, Ganesh, Skandha and Suryanarayana) and the ideologies behind it.

Just because am a believer of Advaita doesn’t mean I have to worship God. Advaita says, ‘Atman is Brahman’. That fact is accepted. But what is the need to pray and worship that Brahman (God in general terms)? Yes it is true that there is a single source of power and that everything originated from that single source of power. It has even been proved scientifically. But why should we worship that source? We humans originate from carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and many other elements. Just because we are made of these elements do we worship them? No, because for the simple reason that we don’t find any conscience in them. I wonder who told people that the almighty powerful single source has a conscience. What if the source is just raw power and nothing else? If it is so, then isn’t it similar to praying to a battery or to electricity?

Some of the facts present in Vedas are undeniable and holds good even to this day. But in the modern day world there has been many changes that could not have been predicted in the vedic ages. So naturally some of them are unpractical and unacceptable. An example would be good here.

Vedas point out that Brahmins are not supposed to undergo travel to foreign countries, most importantly not to cross seas and oceans. Reason: Brahmins are vegetarians. So travelling through ships for months together would mean no vegan diet and hence they would be forced to eat fish! Secondly, Brahmins don’t have any work in foreign countries in the social setup of the vedic ages. Their work was to do Yagnas for the welfare of the country. Clearly we could see why it need not be followed now. Travel by air just takes a few hours and they do provide us with vegetarian food. Also the vedic social hierarchy has long been collapsed and Brahmins in the present day are present in all statuses of the society, from doctors to businessmen.

Sankara’s shanmatha tradition was to narrow down the whole range of Gods present in India to a minimum of six. His idea was that once people start following this practice along with advaita principles they would realize the truth about the singularity of God! They would realise the truth, ‘Atman is Brahman!’ Another reason is that you cannot make lesser intellectuals understand the vast and highly deep ideas of Advaita. So it is always better to make them worship a defined set of deities instead of allowing them pray to whatever they find around them, from trees to rocks. It is also one of the reasons that he brought this tradition. But after 1500 years, the tradition is almost forgotten and advaita is a long forgotten word.

So who am I? A person, who believes in a supreme power source (God), and does not believe that worshipping that source, would bring about any change in the lives of humans, since it is of my opinion that there is no need for God to have conscience. But as a matter of fact I find it so hard to put every pressure, tension and stress with myself. I require a vent by which I can let myself free of these feelings. There is no better way of doing it than praying to God. It creates a protective feeling that I have a guard around me, a sense of hope when it seems all is lost. So I do pray to God just to overcome the above said reasons. May be I am a pseudo-atheist, a person who believes that there is no God but still prays and worships God not because I believe any miracle would change my life in a minutes time but just to keep myself comfortable!

According to Hinduism, a person who doesn’t believe in God isn’t considered to be an atheist. An atheist is a person who doesn’t believe in Vedas. But since I believe in Vedas am not an atheist. I am not an agonist since I have no confusion regarding the presence of God. I am sure that there is God! I am not a theist either since I don’t technically accept the presence of a God with conscience! Yes am also confused to the same extent like everyone else who is reading this post!

Comments are welcome as to who you think I am.

Him, You and I

Lose your pride; Loser your envy;
Lose your anger and lose your ego.
Lose yourself in the thought of Him.
And let Him steal your body and soul.

Think on Him and Feed on Him.
Feel Him, love Him, be Him and Know Him.
Transform into His self; absorb into Him
And become the One with Him.

Renounce the fleeting worldly pleasures
Leave behind the momentary urges & thoughts;
Rise high to learn the bold truth,
That You and I are none, but Him!!

Aham Brahman asmi!!

The entire universe acts on my whim,
The whole world exists on my thoughts,
And the lives in it exist with my wish,
For I am Him, the Almighty!

Humans yearn to have a glance;
And work to unravel my secret.
Whatever they try, truth still eludes them,
For I am Him, the Omniscient.

I am your love & I am what you hate;
Am in your soul and within your life.
I am all you hate and whatever you want.
I am You and You are mine.
For I am Him, the Almighty!

The Force and The Brahman

At around 800 C.E a baby was born in Kerala, by name Sankara to a brahmin couple who wanted a son but weren't blessed with one. Myth says that the couple prayed to Lord Siva at Vadakkunathan temple for a son. The Lord accepted their prayers and gave them a choice. Either to have sons who would live long lives but with mediocre intelligence or a single son with short life but highly intellectual. It is said that the couple chose the latter choice. Sankara like a dutiful brahmin boy went to gurukul, learnt scriptures, Vedas etc in a very short span. Unable to being bound by the earthly lives, he embraced sanyasa and started propagating his ideas and cerebrations through the length and breadth of the country.
So what is the idea propagated by Sankara? The answer is too simple. His ideas which are referred to as Advaita philosophy simply means lack of duality, a Singular Power. Adi Sankara referred to the Singular Power as 'The Brahman', the ultimate soul.
Advaita states that every individual is a part of the eternal soul, The Brahman. There is no difference between each and every living and nonliving thing. Everything originated from Him and will end in Him. Each and every individual is separated from Him by the worldly distractions that surrounds him and prevents him from attaining the ultimate knowledge, the truth about 'The Brahman'. Sankara even details out these distractions and the measures to be followed to come out of the worldly web which is beyond the scope of the blog! Perhaps I will save it for some other day.

The next question that arises is who is the 'Him' and where is the 'Him', about who Advaita and Sankara shower encomiums? He is not the one to be visualized. You are Him. Everything around you is Him. Every single constituent in the universe is a part of Him. Him is nothing but the energy that flows through the cosmic space, into each and every organism, that which makes our heart beat, pump blood, think about Him etc.

Around 1100 years later a german theoretical physicist by name, Hans Albert Einstein stumbled upon the idea of Theory of Relativity and gave a simple equation E=mc2, which became the platform for other scientists to expand and prove the existence, creating and the current position of our Universe.

Theories about Universe started developing based on Relativity and finally they came up with 'The Big Bang model'. The model provided insights to how a big explosion occured at some point of time after which the universe which was of size less than a quark started expanding rapidly to reach this present state. The theory states that when big bang occured, the laws of physics, gravity, force etc came into being. If there had been a minuscle change in the laws during the creation, then i'd probably not writing this blog, the world wouldn't have existed and the whole universe would have collapsed within femto seconds after the big bang.

Hawking even goes a step beyond this and contemplates that even as we talk new universes are created with a big bang outside our dimension. The laws required to stabilise a universe may not always be created during the Bang. Gravity may not be thr in some universe, gravity may repel in others, conversion of mass to energy and vice versa may not occur, entropy may decrease etc leading to collapse of the other Universes.

So after this successful big bang thingy, matter - antimatter interaction occurred and matter emerged triumphant, quarks, protons, neutrons, electrons and atoms were formed, hydrogen came up, H2 under gravity came close, created intense heat resulting in fusion of H2. Then came the mini stars which produced helium as they died, along with carbon, neutron mass and some light elements. During death, the explosion that followed threw the elements to far away regions. The cycle continued and finally heavy metals like gold, platinum, uranium, silver etc were also formed by the same mechanism. A similar formation of a star with many elements resulted in the birth of Sun and its planets. And that's how earth was formed. Life evolved as time progressed in it and finally the life which formed, started thinking about its creator, for which many different names were given as time progressed. Adi Sankara calls the creator as 'The Brahman', Christianity as 'Lord' or 'The Father' and Islam as 'Allah' but modern physicists call them simply as Force, Nature or Physics.

So from the big bang point of view, everything originated from the big bang. Everything around you, including you, your pen, your PC, the breakfast you had in the morning, the stars, planets, moons, galxies etc all originated from the big bang. Everything gets recycled again n again.

Now scroll up and look what advaita says. The crux of both the philosophy and theory are the same. Just the name of the Universal set comprising of all things in the Universe differs. Advaita calls it as The Brahman whereas modern theoretical physicists refer to it as Raw force and Physical laws governing the Universe.

The main aim of advaita philosophy is to prevent future births for every life on earth. To attain 'moksha'! To escape from the continuous cycle of birth and death and mingle together with Him. Having proved Advaita is almost similar to Big Bang, the previous point or the aim of advaita may seem to be an anomaly or flaw in Advaita which 'The Big bang' fails to vindicate. But it is not. As I already mentioned, everything originated from the big bang.

Hypothetically let us consider a star 'X', which was formed by hydrogen fusion, resulting in helium. The helium, under gravity moves towards the core where further pressure and temperature at later stages of the star increases resulting again in fusion and creation of heavier and denser elements like carbon, nitrogen which again undergo the same processes and finally heavy metals are created. During death of the star, the star bursts and the elements are spread throughout the cosmic space. A portion of it reaches a dense mass of hydrogen gas area (nebula 'Y')and thus develops a new star out of it called Sun and other planets including earth. So whateva that is present in the earth comes from the star 'X' and nebula 'Y' including humans.

So from where do we come from? Star 'X' and Nebula 'Y'. Now let us go into the future. Five billion years from now, the Sun would have used up all of its hydrogen, starts using helium, it puffs up like a giant red balloon and would engulf all the planet of the solar system. When the Sun explodes it throws out chunks of essential elements and molecules to outer space just like the star X. Thus a group of hydrogen atom formed during big bang formed 'X' from which our earth came, human body came and finally the elements go to some other nebula becoming cradles for new stars and planets and may be even new life.

Something strikes a bell?? U can always scroll up and check for the advaita aim. There isn't much difference between the two. Does it? So does tat mean that Sankara knew about the big bang model, cosmic space, birth and death of stars etc? If so why doesnt he explain it properly then? Considering the superstitions, the understanding capability and IQ of humans 1200 years back, Sankara would probably have thought that it was better to coat the bitter truth with the sweet flavor of God instead of breaking the truth directly and be ostracized.